Sometimes an idea dances just out of reach and evades capture. Sometimes, the more you try and pin down the concept the further it gets away from you.
It's a bit like the donkey, carrot and stick thing. To the donkey: an insoluble puzzle. Until she stops thinking about the carrot swaying from its string she's never going to catch it. So, stopping, she looks up at the sky. The stick follows the line of her head. The string swings. And the carrot effortlessly falls into her mouth.
Writing's a lot like that for me - Some of the stuff I write here is deeply personal - some of it (frankly) is fluff. Sometimes, it's both. But, more often than not, by looking up at the sky, I end up with a carrot. In this respect, I appreciate this forum because it keeps me honest. The idea may be flawed, but at least most of the words are spelled correctly.
So... what's the elusive carrot that's got the Grande Dame waxing so metaphoric?
Well, actually, I've got a bushel load. They do relate to D/s. And this is the one I'm trying to gnaw on. Mutual trust.
You know that trust building exercise where you close your eyes and fall backwards to be caught by the person behind you? Imagine you had a room full of 50 Doms and 50 subs, but didn't know which was which. Do you think this exercise would help you separate the two?
You bet your ass it would.
In my mind's eye I see the people responding in two ways. One group listens carefully to the instructions, grasps the concepts, and (so long as it's allowed within the rules of the exercise) may look over their shoulders and then fall back.
The other group listens carefully to the instructions seeing if they can figure out what the catch is. They look at the floor and then evaluate how much damage will be done if the idiot behind them screws up. They look over their shoulders (regardless of the rules) and whisper, "Drop me and I'll kick your ass".
Submissives may not be inherently more trusting (that's another debate)... but they seem to have a stronger "trust" muscle than Dominants do. Of course, submissives aren't stupid. If you're going to fall backwards, it should probably be into the arms of someone that is anal-retentive, over-controlling and paranoid enough for _two_ people.
The exercise has one other neat twist to it. If you had 50 of each "brand" of bdsmer in a room and told them to line up as catchers and fallers - how do you think the room would organize itself? (If you have to think about that one, you haven't been in the scene very long). Maybe I'm building this up too much, but Dominants would make up the bulk of the catchers. Why? That's a damn good question and part of the answer is "Hey... Dommes like catching" - I think another part of the answer is "Hey... Dommes don't like falling"
I've known tons of kick-ass Dominants in my time...and they are all absolutely trustworthy. They're worthy of that trust, because they are not trustful.
As a Dominant, I don't care how sturdy a piece of equipment looks. I don't trust that it is sturdy until I give it a good shake. And even then, I still check. I don't care if a submissive says, "I'm okay" after a scene - I don't trust her either. She goes down on her knees until I'm ready to give *her* a good shake.
This is not to say that Dominants are not risk-takers. Hell, the first time you pick up a flogger in public is a huge risk. Nobody wants to look like a bonehead in public. It's not as if the sub has to do anything in particular except stick her ass in the air and writhe occasionally. By contrast, a Dominant has to "step up to the plate" and swing. That's a risk. And while I appreciate that public play is not everyone's cup of tea... I have more respect for those Dominants who are prepared to demonstrate their craft in front of (what can be) a highly critical audience.
But, as brave as stepping up to the plate may be, and despite the fact that it demonstrates many good qualities, it's still not about trust. (Unless trusting that one is a good enough Dominant to pull it off counts - It's a rare Dominant who would leave this up to chance - so it's usually less a matter of trust... more a matter of hours of private practice)
And, as I continue to peel back the layers of this idea - perhaps it extends beyond physical trust. Not to suggest that Dominants are crab-like creatures with tough shells to protect a soft interior that goes well with garlic butter...
But, in addition to being funny, thoughtful, great company and bright...many of the Dominants I know have a very sensitive and remarkably vulnerable side that they rarely (if ever) show. Dominants don't really care for "stoic subs". Okay, admittedly they can be fun, particularly if you "break" them ... but on an ongoing basis, they're just too much hard work.
And yet stoicism in a Dominant is almost a job qualification. There's a damn good reason for this... a Dominant has to keep their "head in the game". For example, losing one's temper (I mean _really_ losing one's temper... not just cranking it up for the sake of the scene) is incredibly dangerous. Submissives get this... which is why Dominants who can remain cool are so attractive. Hell, _everyone_ gets this... which is why "cool" is cool.
Anyone who's been in a D/s relationship knows there's a downside to this. Since Dominants are bred to be self-sustaining and cool... when the going gets tough... they don't turn to their partners... they turn inwards. "Withdrawal" is the polite term..."Dom droop" is the less polite one. It's not openly discussed very often... at least among Dominants. Submissives do chat about it, but usually with a certain amount of hand-wringing and a sense of helplessness.
It's easy to see why submissives feel this way. The culture of bdsm underplays the authority a submissive brings to the table. In fact, I've had chats with extremely "high protocol" slaves who flatly refuse to entertain the idea that they have a vital part to play in the emotional support of Dominance.
Dominants too feel in a bit of a bind. The oversensitive Dom has been widely despised and disrespected. What used to be called "Alan Alda Doms", some call "Sensitive New Age Dominants" and others call "Metrosexuals"... They're all perceived to be a pain.
So... What the hell is a Dominant to do? The emotional vocabulary that exists in D/s is remarkably wide. But in the area of expressing doubts, fears, hopes, questions (in short the stuff of textured mutually supportive relationships)... the emotional grammar falls apart.
What follows might not make sense to someone who hasn't studied language formally. But, in the conjugation of emotional verbs, Dominants have a very limited range. It's mostly restricted to the imperative or the declarative. "Bend over!", "you will bend over", etc. There's not much scope for the conditionals (would I, should I, could I) - and forget about the subjunctive.
(To save you looking up subjunctive: Of, relating to, or being a mood of a verb used in some languages for contingent or hypothetical action, action viewed subjectively, or grammatically subordinate statements.) - "If I said you had a beautiful body would you hold it against me"
One could argue that submissives lack emotional grammar too... the imperative, "Get your fat ass off the couch and come over here and flog me"... is not something one normally hears from a sub. But, I'm sticking to the two rules, "write what you know" and "write from a single perspective" and that's that.
All this stuff is not new. Hell, I've been pissing and moaning about it for years - but, D/s works on so many levels that it pisses me off that there's this big honking hole that undermines so many relationships.
To clarify the hole. "How do you reconcile being a cool, calm and collected Dominant with being an open, expressive and interdependent human being?" - Answer: Easy when every thing's going well... Damn near impossible when things aren't. And the pisser is that (because of the absence of emotional vocabulary) it can be a downward spiral.
Bear in mind that I have a good outlet for all the bottled up rage, frustration, disappointment, doubts et al. It's writing stuff like this. Strangely, after many years of writing on this list... I've rarely if ever seen other Dominants express doubt in this public forum. It's unreasonable to believe that Dominants don't have doubts... how do they resolve them?
The answer is, Dominants frequently don't resolve them at all. D/s relationship turnover is very high. Dom droop is more common than one might think. And "burnout" is an occupational hazard. Often, Doms (and subs for that matter) just throw up their hands and move on.
There's something missing. I can almost taste it. Like a formula with a variable that's very slightly off. There's a set of expectations at the core of D/s that make it unstable.
Maybe it's got something to do with trust. It's a little trite to say that "Doms are trustworthy but not trustful... subs are trustful but not trustworthy" - but the culture of bdsm does seem to push us to either extreme.
I think that both sides of the equation could learn a thing or two from each other. Doms (frustratingly) stink at "falling"... subs (regrettably) suck at "catching"
Whether it's D/s or vanilla, at one time or another, each participant in a real time relationship is going to need _both_ these skills.
As I look back at the process of training in D/s, I'm coming to realize that there's been a fundamental imbalance in some of the ways I've approached it. Not to worry, the ones I've had the good fortune to train with are more than bright enough to fill in their own blanks... and have done so.
But, if I had it to do over, I'd do it differently. It's relatively easy to train someone to a particular role. Hell, pick up a trashy historical romance novel and you can probably learn how to fake it in an afternoon.
But in the Safe, Sane, Consensual mantra... Sanity and Sustainability seem like twinned concepts to me. On reflection...They are twinned concepts... period. And (without giving away trade secrets)...much of the training focused on preserving their own sanity... and less so on the twinned authority that comes with it.
Hard to explain unless you were there, but it's something like this. Top or bottom, the responsibility to "Be proud of yourself" cannot be separated from the authority to "Make other people proud of themselves".
So... thanks for listening while this ass looks at the sky. Maybe I didn't get the whole carrot... but enough of a nibble (for me) to make the exercise worthwhile.
Hope you got a nibble too,
Lady Nichola